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Charlotte Neighborhood Quality of Life Study 2006:

Optimist Park

Quality of Life Studies are available in Special Collections for the years 2000, 2002,
2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010. I looked through the 2006 copy which provided interesting statistics
for that year in Optimist Park and I know summaries were also done for the years 2000 and
2010. Optimist Parks Quality of Life Index was classified as Transitioning during this time
period. It had a population of 503 people with 154, or about 30%, of them being youth and 5.9%
being over the age of 64. The median income was almost half the amount of Charlottes median
income at $26,719. The unemployment rate was high but the dropout rate was 0% with 71.4% of
children passing competency exams. Also, the youth opportunity index was high. 100% of the
neighborhood had access to public transportation compared to 55.6% that had access in all of
Charlotte with the pedestrian friendliness index being medium compared to Charlottes low
rating. Finally, the percent of people receiving food stamps was 28.2% which was more than
three times Charlottes percentage at 8.7%.

Citation:
University of North Carolina at Charlotte. (2006). Charlotte neighborhood quality of life study.
Charlotte: UNC Charlotte.